EE Lightning For The Garden
Discussion
Morining all,
Following on from insurance_jon's post on the aircraft scrap yards, he inspired me into getting something for the garden. I've managed to get my hands on the tail fin from an English Electric Lightning F3.
Sadly, the wonderful looking XR749 was being broken up and now only the cockpit and tail remain. I think the cockpit is being kept by the owner but I'll be getting the tail at the end of June.
Over the following weeks I'm going to strip it down and re-paint it. I was going to cement it into the garden but its got so much history, I was thinking about taking it to a few airshows throughout the year.
So thanks Jon, my other half is going f**king mental now!
oh and here's a wee bit of its history from wikipedia...
In 1984, during a major NATO exercise, Flt Lt Mike Hale intercepted an American U-2 at a height which they had previously considered safe from interception. Records show that Hale climbed to 88,000 ft (26,800 m) in his Lightning F3 XR749. It should be noted that this was not sustained level flight, but in a ballistic climb or a zoom climb, in which the pilot takes the aircraft to top speed and than puts the aircraft into a climb, trading speed for altitude. The normal service ceiling for this aircraft was 60,000 flight in level flight. Hale also participated in time-to-height and acceleration trials against F-104 Starfighters from Aalborg. He reports that the Lightnings won all races easily with the exception of the low level supersonic acceleration, which was a "dead heat".
In British Airways trials in April 1985, Concorde was offered as a target to NATO fighters including F-15s, F-16s, F-14s, Mirages, F-104s - but only Lightning XR749, flown by Mike Hale and described by him as "a very hot ship, even for a Lightning", managed to overtake Concorde on a stern conversion intercept..
Following on from insurance_jon's post on the aircraft scrap yards, he inspired me into getting something for the garden. I've managed to get my hands on the tail fin from an English Electric Lightning F3.
Sadly, the wonderful looking XR749 was being broken up and now only the cockpit and tail remain. I think the cockpit is being kept by the owner but I'll be getting the tail at the end of June.
Over the following weeks I'm going to strip it down and re-paint it. I was going to cement it into the garden but its got so much history, I was thinking about taking it to a few airshows throughout the year.
So thanks Jon, my other half is going f**king mental now!
oh and here's a wee bit of its history from wikipedia...
In 1984, during a major NATO exercise, Flt Lt Mike Hale intercepted an American U-2 at a height which they had previously considered safe from interception. Records show that Hale climbed to 88,000 ft (26,800 m) in his Lightning F3 XR749. It should be noted that this was not sustained level flight, but in a ballistic climb or a zoom climb, in which the pilot takes the aircraft to top speed and than puts the aircraft into a climb, trading speed for altitude. The normal service ceiling for this aircraft was 60,000 flight in level flight. Hale also participated in time-to-height and acceleration trials against F-104 Starfighters from Aalborg. He reports that the Lightnings won all races easily with the exception of the low level supersonic acceleration, which was a "dead heat".
In British Airways trials in April 1985, Concorde was offered as a target to NATO fighters including F-15s, F-16s, F-14s, Mirages, F-104s - but only Lightning XR749, flown by Mike Hale and described by him as "a very hot ship, even for a Lightning", managed to overtake Concorde on a stern conversion intercept..
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